Like North America and Japan, countries in Europe came face to face with severe environmental pollution problems in the 1960s. In the 1970s, the European Community^*2 came together to improve water quality through the formulation and enactment of laws and regulations. The UK had already begun work on modern sewage systems nearly 160 years prior, and in the 1990s, a huge 96% of the population was connected to these sewage facilities. These facilities began to age and deteriorate, however, and significant differences in treatment quality emerged depending on the size of the treatment plant.

In 1991, the European Community issued the Urban Waste Water Directive,^*3 which comprised strict standards for wastewater discharged into coastal waters, estuaries, and inlets. As a member of the European Community itself, the UK examined various urban wastewater treatment methods that would help it satisfy these new standards. It was around this time that Kubota was moving forward with the development of a new wastewater treatment system using submerged membranes. The revolutionary system garnered widespread attention as a next-generation sewage treatment technology.

In 1995, Kubota installed a pilot sewage treatment plant at a water company in the UK that used membrane bioreactor (MBR)^*4 technology, which combined its submerged membranes with biological treatment methods. The UK’s first sewage treatment plant to make use of submerged membranes went into operation in 1998. The new water treatment system was well-received—it boasted advanced membrane-based separation performance that could remove E. coli from contaminated sewage; it was compact, requiring no large auxiliary equipment or post-treatment facilities; and with sustained performance over ten years, it was highly reliable.

Following this success, in 2001 Kubota established a sales company in London for its submerged membrane wastewater treatment systems, Kubota Membrane Europe Ltd. Kubota’s achievements in the UK in the 1990s enabled it to roll out similar systems to the rest of Europe and the Middle East, and in the 2000s, North America and Asia. From requirements for improved water quality to the treatment and reuse of wastewater, Kubota has responded to society’s needs through its world-leading technologies.